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Thursday, January 5, 2012

Simple Maths

Hi, where's everyone? Oh, here you are. It's time we got to know each other a little bit more. Before I go any further, please pull up a chair (this sounds delicious in Romanian!) and take a seat, for I have a confession to make. Please do not get judgemental, remember, let he who is without sin cast the first stone!

It's about sinning indeed, those sins of youth and not necessarily of loins, too. And I'm not talking either about whatever heavy drinking that led to total waste (that happened to some friends of mine, ahem!), no sir, I'm talking about the choice I made some years ago, when going to university. And when, from all possible combinations, I chose to study maths!

Let's not stir too much inside the reasons that animated me back then, but take my word that years of troubles as a student pay off as a teacher. A MATHS teacher! It's a genuine delight to run the slaughterhouse as you like it.

Now, you may be lured to think that mathematicians are some weirdoes or so, which is faaar from the naked truth. They possess some wonderful skills: they can prove that all cows are the same colour or a horse has an infinite number of legs or Achilles will never overtake the tortoise if she had a few metres in front of him (of course the proof is left as homework!). But the greatest of all skills is the godly respect for logic that mathematicians have. No other scientists could even come close to this. History mentions many occassions in which the maths has proved to be the sharpest blade.

Judge for yourself. This experiment was conducted once in front of a house. At a moment, two people went in and, some time later, three came out. These were the conclusions of different scholars:

The physicist: "We haven't measured accurately". Jesus Christ man, it's counting to three, what could go wrong? And he's got a few phd's!
The biologist: "They must have reproduced". And they say I'm obsessed with sex!
The chemist: "It must be a clear case of exoendothermal rixotexobenzenolexo...". Dude, chill! Seriously, take your pills.

Only the mathematician could give the most common sense answer, in which to describe precisely what happened in the house, in the past, present, and future:
"If now exactly one person enters the house, it will be empty again"